Tawni waters

WHEN I WAS A FISH

There was that time before my mother’s salty, warm womb 
became cramped, then traitorous, ejecting my squalling self 
from ocean to dry land, that I swam, a gilled thing, my fingers webbed 
like fins & I breathed water, soaked it in as easily as an octopus.
I could do sub-oceanic backflips then, perform underwater ballets 
that would knock Baryshnikov’s socks off. Clouds of single-celled amoebas 
swirled around me, astonished by my abilities, breaking 
into enthusiastic applause from time to time, offering the best ovations 
they could muster, given their limited potential for standing, when I performed 
a truly breathtaking feat. A “triple-dip-swinging-swirl-double-duster” 
is what I called it then, but it’s hard to explain to people who have forgotten 
the moves they knew when they too were fish. Suffice it to say, it was something
else, my underwater magic. I carry it with me still. Sometimes, when I stand alone 
by the sea, staring into forever, licking up a yellow pinprick moon on the horizon, 
my toenails curl into waves, making themselves blue to remind me that all life
once crawled on fin-like legs, ventured forth, fearfully yet bravely, 
from the salty, warm womb of the sea & sometimes, when I watch 
the evening news, it turns the screen to a tsunami of blood. I see 
Christians killing Muslims & cops shooting black boys dead 
for the crime of wearing hoodies when they venture forth, 
fearfully yet bravely, to buy candy & I wonder how it is that we 
have forgotten the simple truth: 

Never mind the fact that we all 
have misplaced the memories of the dances we once knew 
in that gentler time when we were fish,

once upon a maritime, we all were born of water.

______

OH, PRINCE

you crazy-beautiful motherfucker, I write this in the throes of confession, as if you are the priest of purple & I am the penitent of rusty nails & broken vows, as if you don’t already know what I am about to say, as if you have not always understood that the secrets of the gods were hidden in feathery contrails & warped railroad tracks & raspberry-colored flowers that scrabbled & scrapped their way into this concrete world, deliberately & flagrantly slumming it, disguised as weeds, so that only those with eternal eyes might see their glory. 

And behold, the not-flowers shone like fucking suns 

in the landfill, glinting off broken glass, 

& the seeing ones were amazed.

Prince, like you, I hopped a plane to heaven before my time. Like you, still mortal, I bathed in purple rain until I was good & baptized, until the sounds of mothwings on window screens brought me to my knees. You probably already know this, situated as you are somewhere at the cracking heart of some ancient pyramid, seeing all with your dead man’s eyes. Forgive me for my tendency toward redundancy, but I must speak this secret to someone: There are statues in Egypt that sing. Three-thousand-years-old & timeworn halfway to rubble, but the wind through them makes them clang like cymbals & twang like broken guitar strings. They weren’t always that way. Before sky & sea & humanity had a go at them, they stood strong & flawless in the sun, perfectly good sculptures, intact but incapable of giving birth to hymns. 

Time ran them ragged, 

& that was when they learned 

to make music.

Prince, we are like that too, me & you. We were born perfect & then burned down to bones. It was only then, when our marrow had been revealed to the elements, purple & pulsing, 

that hymns began to erupt 

from our pulverized hearts 

& shatter the air around us.

They found you in an elevator, a mummy already, chocked full of embalmer’s fluid composed primarily of fentanyl, stone dead from an excess of ecstatic experience. You punched the highest floor before you fell & while your shell looked shocked, like those statues in Egypt, the best part of you rose from the rubble, 

singing 

the purple songs 

of gods.

______

A RADIOACTIVE GROUPIE GOES RETROGRADE

I was born either in heaven or a glowstick factory. My dreams of home shine like bedsheets under ultraviolet light, like Krishna, like the way that rock show sparkled when I was high & you danced, dripping purple sweat, rain gifted to the earth of me from the sky of you. In the space between the clouds in your eyes, I saw God for three seconds flat & it was enough to keep me coming back. 

(How many times did the driftwood of me return to you before the undertow tore you away?)

I spend so much time in graveyards now. The moon is my only friend. Sometimes, when I compliment her, she blushes blue & I think of you, shimmering on that stage, spinning dervish-style. I build shrines to you in my mind, drown them in flowers & incense. I try my hand at casting spells, burning candles, sending smoke signals, penning incantations designed to turn back time.

The clock reminded me this morning that Einstein called time—not time travel—an illusion. If it’s good enough for Einstein, it’s good enough for me. I build a time machine from a cardboard box & bedazzle it. The throttle that will take us to warp speed trembles in my fist. I kiss the picture of you I wear on a chain beneath my rosary. 

We rocket into blue infinitude. I am a reckless driver. I nearly maroon myself on Saturn’s rings before I crash-land on planet Earth, December 29, 1999, two days before I found god standing on a stage, wearing halos of stars. 

I will buy purple stilettos for the show. 

You will notice me standing tall in the crowd, 

& this time, we will know love when we meet it. 

______

WHEN I WAS A MAGICIAN’S ASSISTANT

I would lie down on his table, like so, ankles straight, neck bent
at a suggestive but demure angle (the pros make it look easy, but trust me, 
it's a difficult balance to strike) & I would smile up at him, my teeth raw 
pearls, my eyes like marbles, not the kind that children play with, 
but the other kind, the ones rich people keep on small stands, the ones that fit 
nicely in the palm of your hand, smoothed so stylishly you want to weep 
when you touch them & oh, so riotous with colors! My magician would smile 
back, say just under his breath, so that only I could hear it, "This will hurt me more 
than it hurts you & afterward, there will be raspberry spritzer & cake."
 

He had a way of reassuring me, my magician. Maybe it was a trick, come to think of it, 
some kind of conjurer's mesmerization, but if it was, he was fucking great at it. 
I was good & hypnotized. Frozen with love, I watched him draw his saw 
from his holster & that's when the fun started! The crowd went white-silent 
as he dug in, as besotted by him as I was & the metal teeth, so unlike 
my raw pearls, they bit me, alright, but I am proud to say that on my best nights, 
I did not scream. A magician’s assistant’s prime directive is to make dying look fun, 
and I did. Once, on the day I now consider to be my birthday, during a performance
all of the critics & most of the hatted rabbits lauded as my magnum opus, I sang 

the hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah as my magician's blade carved into my heart. 
How the audience wept that day & who could blame them? I was dazzling (dare I say 
sensational?) in my velvet gloves & sequined tights. Even the doves, whom my magician 
had banished to a trap door beneath the table, cooed up to take a peek. I studied their beaks 
as I died, really saw them, you know. I don't want to make unfounded accusations, 
but there is more to a bird’s craw than you probably give it credit for. In the light of death, 
it is impossibly beautiful. I may only be an assistant, but from my magician, I have learned 
something of the ways of magic. For instance, every magician’s assistant worth her salt knows 
for sure, in the ten seconds before she is disappeared, that the tiniest tricks are the prettiest. 

The speck of dust shuddering in the footlights, making rainbows in the air. The dizzying 
loveliness of the quiet cat who has already been vanished to the astral realms sunning herself 
in incandescent glow & my magician, not the whole of him, but that eyelash, fluttering, 

as he lovingly & industriously tore me in two.

UNDERWATER UN-UGLY
(AKA: WHY THEY CALL MY VOICE A SIREN’S SONG)

Stupid sailor, take off your boots & sink into the sea of me.
You think I am pretty the way that girl you raped was pretty
the one you left weeping on the floor before you whispered 
“whore” & pulled up your khaki pants. I heard her cry. 
I am her vengeance. You are wrong about me. You see,
I am pretty the way jellyfish are pretty. Effervescent. Translucent. 
All the colors a girl should be. Purple & the shocking kind of pink
you only saw that one time you chewed six pieces of gum & blew 
your bubble bigger than the sun. I am extraterrestrial. Able to exist 
without air. I wear my hair like strands of moonglow. Watch me 
long enough & you will know secrets heretofore only seen 
by garden eels & a near-extinct species of starfish. Make a wish 
on my undulating belly. Dance while I hypnotize you. The rumors 
you’ve heard are true. My trance will make drowning feel like baptism. 
The difference between me & that green snake you see 
wrapped around the apple tree in those ecstatic paintings of Eden
is invulnerability to your kind comes easily to me.

I won’t hiss before I kiss you. 
I don’t even have to strike to sting.

______

TAWNI WATERS’ DEBUT NOVEL, BEAUTY OF THE BROKEN (SIMON & SCHUSTER) WON THE PRESTIGIOUS INTERNATIONAL LITERACY ASSOCIATION’S AWARD FOR YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE, THE HOUSATONIC BOOK AWARD, WAS NAMED AN EXCEPTIONAL BOOK OF 2015 BY THE CHILDREN’S BOOK COUNCIL, WAS SHORTLISTED FOR THE READING THE WEST BOOK AWARD, AND WAS INCLUDED ON THE KANSAS STATE READING CIRCLE LIST. IT WAS ADAPTED FOR THE STAGE AND PERFORMED BY SACRAMENTO’S NOW HERE THIS AND IS BEING ADAPTED FOR THE SCREEN. HER SECOND NOVEL, THE LONG RIDE HOME, WAS RELEASED BY SOURCEBOOKS FIRE IN SEPTEMBER 2017 TO GLOWING REVIEWS, INCLUDING BEING NAMED ONE OF THE BEST NEW ADULT NOVELS OF THE SEASON BY KIRKUS. 

TAWNI IS THE AUTHOR OF TWO POETRY COLLECTIONS: SIREN SONG (BURLESQUE PRESS) AND SO SPEAK THE STARS (TEXTURE PRESS). HER WORK WAS ANTHOLOGIZED IN BEST TRAVEL WRITING 2010, THE SOUL OF A GREAT TRAVELER, AND MONDAY NIGHTS, AND HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN MYRIAD JOURNALS AND MAGAZINES. SHE HAS BEEN A WRITER IN RESIDENCE AT ROSEMONT COLLEGE, WESTERN CONNECTICUT STATE UNIVERSITY, THE DARE COUNTY ARTS COUNCIL, AND CENTRE INTERMONDES IN LA ROCHELLE, FRANCE, WHERE SHE SPENT TIME IN FRENCH HIGH SCHOOLS, SPEAKING TO STUDENTS WHO WERE STUDYING HER NOVELS. 

TAWNI HAS AN MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING AND TEACHES CREATIVE WRITING AT VARIOUS UNIVERSITIES, CONFERENCES, AND WRITERS' RETREATS THROUGHOUT THE U.S., EUROPE, AND MEXICO. IN HER SPARE TIME, SHE TALKS TO ANGELS IN HER HOME IN THE NEW MEXICO MOUNTAINS, INTERMITTENTLY ATTEMPTING TO SAVE ILL-FATED LIZARDS FROM THE JAWS OF HER FIERCE CHIHUAHUA COMPANIONS.